Lake View, AL
Lake View, AL's wildfire risk, in USFS's own numbers
Out of every US place USFS scores, Lake View lands at the 72nd percentile for wildfire risk to structures — well above the national norm for wildfire risk — a figure built from its 1,112 buildings, not the land around them. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Lake View's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 76th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Direct exposure dominates in Lake View: 81.5% of its 1,112 buildings, versus 17.4% Indirect and 1.2% Minimal. Clearing space around a structure changes the outcome here more than any single building-material swap.
Where Lake View ranks
Lake View's 72nd national percentile looks worse in isolation than its 53rd ranking inside Alabama does — this place is on the milder end for its own state, by 20 points. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Lake View ranks 8,718 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 11,202 by building count (1 is largest). Within Alabama alone, it ranks 283 of 592 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for Alabama on its state page.
Lake View and the insurance market
Lake View's 72nd-percentile, high rating is the kind of score behind a broader national pattern: insurers pulling back from the highest wildfire-risk markets, non-renewing or declining new policies outright, most visibly in California. Shopping around, not assuming automatic renewal, tends to matter here.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
With 81.5% of Lake View in Direct exposure, defensible-space clearing and ember-resistant construction (vents, Class-A roofing) address the exposure this page's own numbers describe, not a generic checklist. See the home-hardening guide.
More on how this number was built
Every one of the two percentiles behind Lake View's 8,718-place national rank traces to USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities dataset — see the methodology guide. For more on what direct exposure implies beyond Lake View, see the exposure-zones guide.